News

UC Davis engineering alumna Kim Budil, M.S. ’88, Ph.D. ’94 was named the 13th director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the first woman director in the lab’s 69-year history.

Chemical engineering assistant professor Ambar Kulkarni is one of 500 recipients nationwide to receive a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award this year. The NSF CAREER Award, the agency’s most prestigious award for early-career faculty, recognizes researchers who have the potential to be role models and leaders in research and education by funding research projects that can serve as the foundation for the rest of their careers.

Chemical engineering distinguished professor Bruce Gates was honored by his students and colleagues on his 80th birthday with a special invited manuscript in ACS Catalysis highlighting his 50+ year career and accomplishments in the field.

UC Davis will play an important role in a new $274.5 million multi-institution center to develop reliable, sustainable and large-scale bioindustrial manufacturing and technology. The Bioindustrial Manufacturing and Design Ecosystem (BioMADE) was awarded $87.5 million over 7 years by the Department of Defense (DoD), along with $187 million in additional funding from the 80+ companies, universities and organizations involved.

Chemical engineering distinguished professor Ahmet Palazoglu published the third edition of his textbook, Introduction to Process Control this July through CRC Press, LLC. The book, co-written with Louisiana State University professor Jose Romagnoli, was first published in 2005 and updated in 2012.

Sandia National Laboratories and UC Davis have solidified a new partnership as David Osborn, a distinguished member of technical at Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility, joins the Department of Chemical Engineering as an adjunct professor. In his role, Osborn will teach guest lectures each year—something he has already been doing—and serve as the liaison between Sandia and chemical engineering students and faculty in the department.

Michelle Bryden ‘92 is always learning. From her days as a chemical engineering undergraduate at UC Davis, she has been eager to learn and try new things so she can easily move between different projects and fields in a quest to solve problems. As a research and development engineer at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL), she plays an important role in developing technology for the Navy to process signals more effectively and help them better find targets under the sea with sonar and radar.

An Assistant Project Scientist research position is immediately available at the McDonald-Nandi laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Davis to work on the projects that involve transgenically/transiently producing, quantifying, purifying, and characterizing pharmaceutical proteins in lettuce (Lactuca sativa) and tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana

The Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Davis invites applications for a temporary instructor to teach ECH 158C "Plant Design Project." This is a 4-unit course taught in Spring with an anticipated enrollment of 30 - 40 students. This course is taught in separate sections each with a distinct instructor and design project. Collaboration between instructors is an elemental part of the teaching effort.

Is cultivated meat — essentially, animal protein grown under lab conditions — a nourishing prospect to help feed the world, or is it more sizzle than steak? A consortium of researchers at the University of California, Davis, aims to explore the long-term sustainability of cultivated meat, supported by a new grant of up to $3.55 million from the National Science Foundation Growing Convergence program, in addition to previous support from the Good Food Institute and New Harvest.

By Constanze Ditterich

College of Engineering dean and distinguished professor of chemical engineering Jennifer S. Curtis was recognized for her leadership in engineering administration and education by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) with the national Benjamin G. Lamme Award.